The Damnation of Theron Ware eBook

It seemed that, unlike other people, the Maddens did
not have their parlor on the ground-floor, opening
off the front hall. Theron stood in the complete
darkness of this hall, till Celia had lit one of several
candles which were in their hand-sticks on a sort of
sideboard next the hat-rack. She beckoned him
with a gesture of her head, and he followed her up
a broad staircase, magnificent in its structural appointments
of inlaid woods, and carpeted with what to his feet
felt like down. The tiny light which his guide
bore before her half revealed, as they passed in their
ascent, tall lengths of tapestry, and the dull glint
of armor and brazen discs in shadowed niches on the
nearer wall. Over the stair-rail lay an open
space of such stately dimensions, bounded by terminal
lines of decoration so distant in the faint candle-flicker,
that the young country minister could think of no word
but “palatial” to fit it all.

At the head of the flight, Celia led the way along
a wide corridor to where it ended. Here, stretched
from side to side, and suspended from broad hoops
of a copper-like metal, was a thick curtain, of a uniform
color which Theron at first thought was green, and
then decided must be blue. She pushed its heavy
folds aside, and unlocked another door. He passed
under the curtain behind her, and closed the door.

The room into which he had made his way was not at
all after the fashion of any parlor he had ever seen.
In the obscure light it was difficult to tell what
it resembled. He made out what he took to be a
painter’s easel, standing forth independently
in the centre of things. There were rows of books
on rude, low shelves. Against one of the two windows
was a big, flat writing-table—­or was it
a drawing-table?—­littered with papers.
Under the other window was a carpenter’s bench,
with a large mound of something at one end covered
with a white cloth. On a table behind the easel
rose a tall mechanical contrivance, the chief feature
of which was a thick upright spiral screw. The
floor was of bare wood stained brown. The walls
of this queer room had photographs and pictures, taken
apparently from illustrated papers, pinned up at random
for their only ornament.

Celia had lighted three or four other candles on the
mantel. She caught the dumfounded expression
with which her guest was surveying his surroundings,
and gave a merry little laugh.

“This is my workshop,” she explained.
“I keep this for the things I do badly—­things
I fool with. If I want to paint, or model in clay,
or bind books, or write, or draw, or turn on the lathe,
or do some carpentering, here’s where I do it.
All the things that make a mess which has to be cleaned
up—­they are kept out here—­because
this is as far as the servants are allowed to come.”

She unlocked still another door as she spoke—­a
door which was also concealed behind a curtain.

“Now,” she said, holding up the candle
so that its reddish flare rounded with warmth the
creamy fulness of her chin and throat, and glowed upon
her hair in a flame of orange light—­“now
I will show you what is my very own.”